From Finance Manager to Career Coach

When Carol Fishman Cohen returned to a full-time finance career after five years of part-time work and six years of staying home with her four kids, she assumed she'd be happy doing what she'd always done. That was a mistake. It took less than a year for the Boston area resident to realize her interests had changed and she needed to do something else.

That discovery led Cohen, 51, and partner, Vivian Steir Rabin, 52, to create iRelaunch, a Boston firm that targets other stay-at-home moms and dads re-entering the workforce. Their conferences also attract retirees who want to go back to work and boomers looking for encore careers.

In an interview with SecondAct, Cohen talks about her own missteps, stumbling blocks anyone contemplating a return to work needs to overcome, and other advice for job seekers over 40.

'Aha' moment: In hindsight, Cohen says she didn't do a thorough career assessment before going back into the same field, a step she now recommends as a must for anyone returning to work after a break. Once she did, "I realized I didn't want to do financial analysis anymore. I loved working with people," she says.

Getting started: Cohen's quest to find a more fulfilling job became the subject of a case study at Harvard Business School. That, among other things, helped her get a contract to write a book with Rabin, a friend and investment-banker-turned-executive-recruiter who also had  taken time off to be with her five children. They published their book, Back on the Career Track: A Guide for Stay-At-Home Moms Who Want to Return to Work, in 2007 and then formed a consulting firm to do career re-entry work with companies and colleges. They also put on career seminars.

Biggest challenge: It can be difficult to separate what type of work you want to do from other issues associated with going back to work. Cohen calls it the "floundering period." For her, "I had to separate out my desire to be working from the realities of my situation as a mother of four young children," she says. "The timing had to be right for my family, and the level of family and outside support had to be right for me to seriously entertain returning to a demanding full-time job." Eventually, things fell into place. But that was a decade ago, when  resources available for stay-at-home moms returning to work were virtually nonexistent. "That's one of the reasons we wrote Back on the Career Track," she says, "so no one would have to feel isolated and without a game plan, the way we did."

Work philosophy: "I love what I do, and I tend to get immersed in it," Cohen says. "However, I am intensely focused on and devoted to my husband and my kids, who are now 16 to 21. They are my highest priority. I don't have a lot of time for much else, but that's OK with me."

Inspired by: Cohen has collected career re-entry stories for 10 years, but she never tires of hearing them. "I am also enthralled with the details of the stories themselves: the exact steps people take, the conversations, the important networking lead, the laser focus on a particular job opportunity. I still can't get enough of them."

What's next: Cohen and Rabin are hosting career re-launch conferences this fall at New York University's Stern School of Business and George Washington University in Washington, D.C.

Words of advice: Whether you've been home for child care, elder care or took a break for another reason, the strategies for going back to work are the same. Do as much research on yourself as on any company that you're interested in working for, so you can quickly describe past job experiences that show you are well-suited to the position you're applying for. If you don't know what to wear to a job interview, err on the side of overdressing. If you're over 40, "present yourself as enthusiastic and knowledgeable," Cohen says. A positive attitude is the best defense against a recruiter who may assume you're too old. "If you're smiling and energetic and you've done your research on a company, you'll do well. Those qualities transcend age."

Want more? Check out these recent jobs posts:

• 2011 Employment Outlook: Where the Jobs Are
• 4 Ways to Job Hunt Online
• How to Navigate a Job Fair
• Blogging Their Way to a Midlife Makeover